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It´s a special kind of silence that´s being felt all over that place. It´s peaceful. Heather´s growing like a carpet and right between all the weathered stone crosses. Once made out of plain stone, they now mark the human remains of former patients of the nearby psychiatric hospital, who deceased between the years 1921 - 1981. As the cemetery was opened in '21 the hospital was still named "Rijkskrankzinnigengesticht" ("public mental hospital") - a customary term at that time. Around 1750 - exclusively male - patients were buried here. As mentioned above, the last one in 1981.

The graves itselves are designed pretty simple. The individual stone cross only contains a metal plate with the name as well as the date of birth and death of the patient in respective. You can´t help it but ask yourself what kind of lives they might had had. It was not uncommon that patients had to spend a significant part of their lives in such institutions, not to say even their whole lives. One thing is certain at last. They all had to spend the rest of their lives within an institution, which excluded them from society.

The graveyard itself is located right in the middle of the woods. Thanks to the sunny weather of a late summer´s day, it helped to find the atmosphere more peaceful than anything else. The sun was shining and created an immense heat between the stone crosses and the heather growing all over the place, just helped to add friendliness to the whole scenery. I´m sure a cold, misty November´s day would change the whole atmosphere completely. Yet, the friendly weather that day couldn´t delude me from that gloomy mood arising deep down. All those seemingly perfect stone crosses in a row, those bleached out plastic flowers on some of the graves and further, partly indefinable objects being found on the site - remnants of an unique culture of memory - made me feel quite uneasy.

Shortly before leaving the grounds, I spotted a pretty new-looking plushie, a mouse. Sitting right on one of the crosses, already with cobwebs on its head. It really appeared out of place. My gaze settled on the fence around the burial site. Right in the middle of the woods, I could see a woman standing on the other side of the fence. Rooted at the spot and gazing at me as well. Or maybe she wasn´t even looking at me, but the whole scenery itself. I started to feel a bit uneasy, as I feared she wouldn´t like me to be right in the middle of that burial site. Yet, when I started to approach her, I was able to recognise her as a patient of the still existing psychiatric hospital nearby. Apparently, she was on an excursion through the woods with other patients, but had left the group for a short time. I really asked myself, what her thoughts were. I´ll never know. Coming nearer, she disappeared in the thicket and I left the cemetery grounds.

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An independent members only club, dedicated to the working man who required a certain place for private meetings and events.
This place has a little bit of everything. Dark, creepy unlit rooms, and rooms where light was still flourishing through the gaps and crevices.
It has had many aliases since the buildings birth in the 1920's and had less than 300 members.
Along the many years the workmens club was usually packed full of people, to the point you couldn't even move.
Slowly but surely however the club started to lose money as members became scarce. It couldn't pay it's own way and since the number of members started dwindling,
the Workmans club had to close its doors to the few remaining loyal members.
Now sits empty and has done for more than 6 years now.
Hopefully the building can see new life in the near future, but for me it was good to get an unusual view of the club.
Cheers for looking!

As usual with our explores, they are never really a walk in the park. Access to the building itself was a challenge as the top area in which we needed to go was locked off completely. Thankfully, being quite adapted to the tasks at hand, we managed to ride on top of a lift to gain access to the building.
Once inside it was clear that the building was in quite a bad state. Natural erosion has started eating away at the 60 year old building, and rust can be found throughout.
Pigeons were lurking in the crevices and the whole place smelt of damp.
The building was a former office block but has been abandoned for 20 or more years.
Here is some of the best photos we managed to get. Thanks for looking!
C

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Oblivion State exists as an online forum to allow like minded individuals to share their experiences of Urban Exploration. We do not condone breaking and entering or other criminal activity and advise all members to read the FAQ articles about the forum and urban exploring in general. All posts are the responsibility of the original poster and all images remain copyright to the original photographer